Standing tall before the cohort

Published: 02 April 2007

I was on retreat 10 years ago pondering the Holy Week readings, when I
came upon a text in Matthew that describes how soldiers hauled Jesus
before "the whole cohort" to face jeers, humiliation, and torture. The
whole cohort? What was that? In Jerusalem, each year during the
Passover festival, the Roman governor assembled a cohort, some 600
soldiers to protect against riot or rebellion. This scene is one of the
most appalling and astounding images in the scripture and also one of
the most anti-military images ever pictured - Fr John Dear